She was the daughter of Rabbi Benjamin Szold of Hungarian birth, who was the spiritual leader of Baltimore's Temple Oheb Shalom.

[1] She was the eldest of eight daughters, and her younger sister Adele Szold-Seltzer was the translator of the first American edition of Maya the Bee.

"[6]Szold's answer to Peretz is cited by "Women and the Mourners' Kaddish," a responsum written by Conservative Rabbi David Golinkin.

This responsum, adopted unanimously by Conservative Judaism's Va'ad Halakhah (Law Committee) of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, permits women to recite the Mourners' Kaddish in public when a minyan is present.

Szold established the first American night school to provide English language instruction and vocational skills for Russian Jewish immigrants in Baltimore.

[10] "The sole woman at the JPS, Szold's duties included the translation of a dozen works, writing articles of her own, editing the books, and overseeing the publication schedule.

Here, she discovered her life's mission: the health, education and welfare of the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community of Palestine).

Hadassah funded hospitals, a medical school, dental facilities, x-ray clinics, infant welfare stations, soup kitchens and other services for Palestine's Jewish and Arab inhabitants.

Szold persuaded her colleagues that practical programs open to all were critical to Jewish survival in the Holy Land.

[9] In 1933, she immigrated to Palestine and helped run Youth Aliyah, an organization that rescued 30,000 Jewish children from Nazi Europe.

[12] From 1948 to 1967, the Mount of Olives was cut off from the rest of Jerusalem by the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

After Israel regained the region in the Six-Day War, Kalman Mann, then-director general of Hadassah Medical Center, went with a group of rabbis to the cemetery to assess the condition of Szold's grave.

The Palmach, in recognition of her commitment to "Aliyat Hanoar" Youth Aliyah, named the illegal immigration (Ha'apalah) ship "Henrietta Szold" after her.